LET ME COUNT THE WAYS

by James Lincoln Warren

Here are how many people I’ve killed so far1, listed by causa mortis :

• Explosion (302: two hundred ninety-nine killed in the detonation of a frigate’s powder magazine consequent to the ship being run aground in a war action; three in a Mercedes-Benz by remotely controlled bomb)
• Poison (at least 11: multiple deaths via arsenic, five fatal laudanum overdoses, one death by cantharin, one by chlorine gas, and one by anaphylactic shock due to a peanut oil allergy combined with a cocaine overdose)
• Infectious disease (4 or more: at least three by induced smallpox combined with arsenic poisoning, total number unspecified but enough to establish a pattern, with only one actually on stage, as it were; and one by influenza.)
• Hanging (4, possibly 52: all implied executions.)
• Blunt force trauma (4, possibly 5: two stonings—one by hoodlums, one by an unruly mob; one beating with bare fists, one fatal concussion administered with an oar, and one possible death by assault during a riot—see Hanging)
• Stabbing (3: two muggings, one suicide)
• Lethal fall (3)
• Shooting (2: one by a single sniper rifle shot to the head, one by multiple pistol shots to the torso)
• Drowning (1: in tandem with a laudanum overdose)
• Garrotting (1)
• Dog attack (1)
• Heat stroke (1)
• Decapitation (1)
• Myocardial infarction (1)

The following were not murders: the four or five implied executions by hanging, the decapitation (another implied execution), the suicide (a murderess’s remorse and madness), the multiple body shots by pistol (justifiable homicide—my detective was defending his partner), one of the lethal falls (an accident), the influenza (fate), and the heart attack (poetic justice).

I have strongly suggested that my Augustan Age detective Alan Treviscoe has killed more than one man in duels with small-swords, but as homicide by duel is clearly murder, I’ve never spelled it out and I never will, not wanting my hero to have such blood on his hands—but his reputation with a blade had to come from somewhere, I suppose.

In addition, there have been four attempted homicides in the collected opera: one attempt by placing a rattlesnake in a confined space (viz., the cockpit of a Curtiss JN-4D “Jenny” biplane), one arsenic poisoning, one indoors pistol shot producing a leg wound, a sword attack in the fog, and two attempts at the same target with a rifle in a blizzard.

There are other patterns, too. Two stories take place in brothels, two stories involve expensive timepieces, several stories contain references to chess, many stories involve ships in one way or another, and two stories end with ironic newspaper accounts. But I digress. We were on the subject of death.

Years ago when I was an Ensign in the U.S. Navy, I attended a soirée hosted by the Lord Mayor of Portsmouth, England. A young British male civilian I engaged in conversation (to be honest, I should confess that I was much more interested in his date, a svelte red-headed Welsh elementary schoolteacher, than in him—I was a young sailor, after all) asked me pointedly,

“So why do you like to kill people?”

He was making a pacifistic point, of course, and also trying to impress his date by taking on the Fleet, something I consider extremely unwise, even at a posh social gathering. But luckily she was unimpressed, and I was able to defend myself by explaining that I had never killed anyone and hoped I would never be called on to do so, that the existence of naval strike forces actually deters adventurism, and finally that if NATO did its job correctly, we would all live in peace and liberty. I also reminded him that I was there at the invitation of his government, and if he disapproved of my presence, it were better done to take it up with his MP than with me.

He backed off and was very pleasant for the rest of the evening, which went very well, except that the Welsh girl left with him because she had invited him and he had driven them there on his Vespa, and was as such obligated to drive her home. A lost opportunity, alas.3

If asked the same question today, being much less romantic and a lot more cynical, I would deliver a considerably different answer:

“Oh, lots of reasons!  For one, I get paid for it.  But I’d

probably do it just for fun anyway.  I admit that part of

the appeal is the mental challenge of dreaming up new

and more clever ways to do folks in, too.  And let’s be

honest, lots of people plainly deserve it, don’t they?”

Another lost opportunity. Sigh.

1. If anybody from the Department of Homeland Security is reading this, I hasten to add that none of these victims was real. [↩]
2. We last see one exposed villainess—a word apparently coined by Christopher Marlowe, who didn’t like girls, “the face that launched a thousand ships” notwithstanding—being viciously manhandled during a riot, making it possible she met her demise at the ungentle hands of the mob, thus being rendered unable to keep her rendezvous with the gallows. If she lived and kept tryst with Tyburn Tree, that would make five. [↩]
3. I attended a similar reception the following year, where I did land a date with the Welsh woman’s successor, an auburn-haired beauty of the English rose variety whom I remember with great fondness. By then, you see, I had learned not to hesitate. [↩]